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A few years ago, Atlanta in-house average was about $12-$15/hour, plus good bennies. nm

Posted By: Not enough for me. sm on 2005-08-22
In Reply to: I'm interested in working in the Marietta area, maybe for one of the Wellstar Hospitals. nm - Cissy

By the way, as of about 5 years ago, Wellstar was with a service.  They might not even have in-house MTs.  Hope so for  your sake :).


 


 




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Is $15 an hour a good hourly rate for an in-house office position?

nm


 


Depends on the pay and account. My lowest average is $15.52 an hour (roughly 182.6 lines an hour) w
;'
I would say average is $15 per hour. sm

Watch out for QA positions that are paid by cpl QA'd.  In some instances it may work out fine, but hourly (in my opinion) is the best way to be paid for QA/editing.


Average of 450 to 500 per hour

I average 190 to 200 per hour....
:)
I average 37-43/hour
It's not impossible. Some people are better at some jobs and some are better at others. I happened to fall into a great job. Mine is at a hospital and we get paid by the line. I lost about 5/hour when we went to a new platform of editing and transcription. I still can't make this anywhere else and no, it's not counting headers, footers, etc., it's just fast transcription and loving my job, makes all the difference in the world. I don't think it's gloating at all. There probably are a lot more transcriptionists who make this kind of money, it's just that no one is aware of it.
Stockbridge, before in city limits of Atlanta 30 years
NM
I average 20 to 25 min of dictation in an hour ...
so I'd say 3:1 for me...on AVERAGE.

Sometimes I can do better, sometimes worse. As long as I can average 3:1 for the day, I feel I've done okay.

I average 300 lines per hour
for acute care, mostly OP notes, 65/char line, which would be 19,500 characters per hour.      
Thought average is 15 min/1 hour.

x


National average is $14.00/hour, so no-
I think someone with many years of experience (if the quality and skills are there, obviously) should make more than the national average.  Then again, if you don't have to pay for health benefits or something like that it might be a more reasonable wage imo.
How is giving $-per-hour average vs

x


PA...average$56 a month with central AC on all day...1800 sq. ft. house.
x
What is the average lines per hour for radiology?
A lot of companies are now paying per line now rather than by report or per page.  I just wondered if it differed from other transcription as I do both but do not have a line counter for radiology in the system I type into.
I average 600 lines an hour on ES - editing, sm
transcribing 400 lph.

I have been working this platform for about 3 years now.

Using the shortcut keys and not the mouse helps tremendously in an awesome line count average.

Hope this information helps.
Also agree, but average 15-20 minutes an hour...nm
nm
You are really not that far off the average of 20 mins per hour of dictation. NM
s
The MT average is 20 minutes of dictation/hour
x
I average 1800 lines per 8 hour day, but have
been doing this 20+ years and have zillions of expanders. I still do lots of research and add expansion asll the time.
I average 1700 - 1900 in an 8-hour day. I
have also been doing this for 25+ years and have hundreds of Expanders and bunches of normals/standards that I have created. I am also on only 2 accounts from the MTSO. I also find that Ops are my favorites, and can literally fly through those while maintaining a 99+% accurace rate. It takes time. 16 months is not a long time in this business to increase your speed. My goal is always 200 lines an hour and I usually take a 10 to 15 min. break every 2 hours just to get away from the computer. It can be done.
I usually average $25/hour paid by line so most places...

This is not possible. You'd have to average 300 lph and work a 12 hour day. This person is stre
x
I'd figure out an average I make per hour, and charge that. -nm
x
In the Atlanta area there are a good many....sm

female construction workers and female home/buisness builders... and they're usually not gay.


you can expect 12.00 - 15.00 hour average, pretty much nation wide.
d
Line rate isn't the only factor -- your lines/hour average is key, too.
Even at 7 cpl, keeping about 275 lines/hour average keeps you at $19.25 an hour and that is $40,000 a year.

It is a myriad of factors involved. You have to have the knowledge, be decisive, self-sufficient and very focused. Then, you need to negotiate as high a base rate as you can and look toward the incentive plan to increase your paycheck.

With our incentive, it was not worth it if I couldn't hit high lines in a day. So, I changed my schedule to hit those lines.

I am tired after my work days but having the 4 days a week off and a good income makes it worth it for me. It allows me to spend my days off doing things I want to.

In-house MT around $22 per hour. nm
x
You would need to go back in-house to be paid by the hour.

MT for 10+ years, i would say 3:1 is average. nm
;
Average rate for 10+ years out here is now 9 cpl...:( nm
.
IC Clinic average pay 3 years ago . . .
I started at 9 cpl 3 years ago on a clinic/psychology account (one account) for a local hospital with only 3 months experience, but I also worked full-time as an employee for that hospital during the day and the IC stuff was at night when they needed extra coverage.
Average pay to start with a company after being an MT for 5+ years FT?
I am new to the job marked (have worked on my own for 5 years) and am looking at some of the MT positions.  Can anyone tell me (I realize all places pay differently) on an average your best guess at what a decent 65 character line rate would be to start?  I had been offered 7.5 cents at one place and I thought that was pretty low.  Would appreciate any opinions.  Thank you!
After working 2 years, I average 220-250 lph for clinic work.
nm
Expensive is right -- around $300 per credit hour! But they do have a good rep. Good luck! nm

On average, 1,500 good day, 1,100 bad day
x
I worked in house for 2 years

and when I went on Maternity leave they set me up from home.  I started working for a national in January.  My other at home position went VR and they brought all the jobs back in house. I couldn't go back into the office as I have two little ones and the cost of daycare is outrageous.  What's the sense of working then?


6 at home and 1 in house (first job) in 6 years
x
Regarding going in-house after ICing for 7 years...(sm)

First, thanks to all who responded.  Your collective experiences and insight were very helpful.  I've decided that for the time being I am going to stay put at home.  The main reason I was considering going in-house was because I am now alone at home (hubby is in assisted living).  After years of caregiving and progressively becoming housebound due to that caregiving I find myself doing nothing but working and visiting hubby.  I thought going in-house would give me a much needed change.  However, I've decided that I'd rather select the people I interact with than having that fellowship need met by colleagues in a work environment. 


Anyway, thanks again for your input.  Most of you confirmed my underlying horror of office politics, gossiping, and pure misery.  I do love the company I work with and would have had a very difficult time leaving them.  I'm staying put!! 


I trained in house 5 years ago
They had such a turnover they would hire anybody off the street that felt like giving it a try.  One in-house self-study medical terminology course, and a lot of help and support from my co-workers and I was good to go.  Since then I've worked for 2 nationals (and had to unlearn a few bad habits - I'd never even heard of BOS inhouse, LOL).  I never spent a cent to begin this profession - I got paid hourly to do it.
What is the average line/hour for a 65 character line with spaces? NM
.
The average is now $1.00-$1.25, so that is a good rate. sm
If it includes mammos and/or plain films, it will balance out the MRIs and CTs. Just make sure that they do not include IR reports in there at that rate. There are probably only 3 decent radiology transcription companies out there, so do you homework and not just the nay-sayers or cheerleaders. Look for the longer answers with details, not the "go for it" or "stay away" kind. I have found that those are either angry ex-employees of a company or new hires that are still in the honeymoon phase. Look for advice from those that have been at a company over a year; that is a good length of time for an impression to be accurate.

What company/companies are you looking at for that rate?
After years of sitting down and getting 1 job an hour....
I finally got out.  They don't care if 300 people type 50 jobs a day or 3000 people type 1 job a day.  Makes no difference to them.  Hey, if you don't make their minimum line count, they don't have to provide you with benefits, so it's a win-win if you don't get much work.  I can only hope that a company that cares that little about their employees will eventually implode upon itself.  It took me over a year of scouring the employment opportunities at the local hospitals before I finally got a job with a hospital.  For the first time in 17 years of doing MT, I feel like somebody.  I was also fortunate enough to get a job that has all their MTs at home telecommuting, so it's best of both worlds.  I know that isn't possible for everybody, but maybe if enough people "bail" on these nationals who HAVE all the hospital accounts, and they're left with inexperienced "typists" who will eventually mess up the work so bad that the hospitals get mad, maybe hospitals will go back to having their own department where at least they have some quality control over the finished product.  That's my hope for this profession.
i would say a good experienced average is about 200 lph so students maybe 100 to 150 lph. nm
;
Best advice - work in-house a couple of years
You really do need hands-on experience in order to be able to do this at home. You will run into terms that you will have no idea how to look up - like "booj aw boo" would you know to look under bougie au boule? Or "terry onal craniotomy" would you know it is "pterional" or would you spends loads of time looking for "T" words? If you work face to face with experienced MTs, they can help you when you run into similar situations. I'm not being snooty, I am only pointing out real situations that you will be faced with and the reasons MTSOs insist that before an MT can work independently at home they have at least 2 years experience. I believe that most of us have worked in-house in the beginning to get to the point where we can do this efficiently at home. Once you do get that experience, though, stand back, the MTSOs will be beating down your door with job offers. Good luck and hang in there! Remember we all had to start somewhere. Best of luck to you!
20 years, 300 lines per hour, & still rockin' ;)

From someone who's still considered a top producer compared to the "'young'uns" at my company:  The best thing I've found is keeping your hand off of the danged mouse and using hot keys instead!  Most people are taught to use the mouse for everything with Word and most other WP programs and they have no idea that hot keys are available for just about every function. You're taking food off of your table (or gas out of your tank, or whatever gets your attention) every time you take your hands off of the keys.  Also, if you're using your calculator keypad to insert numbers (like lab values), please, please, PLEASE learn to utilize the numbers above the letters on your keyboard.  These seem like very simple, small steps, but they really do add up in the long run. 


Most in-house hospital jobs allow only 30 minutes for lunch! So I wouldn't call an hour lunch
"rigid."  If you are an employee, there are rules, set schedules, etc. that you have to expect. 
i have 19 years experience and still type 220+ lines/hour
without having to cherrypick. That's just what we do when we get into a backlog. That way, we never have to outsource ... thank God ... and we won't lose our jobs to India ... even BETTER!
MT2B, it's a good average sort of starting point. SM
Not at all bad, not fast.

More finger-speed will come with practice. Your next step is to buy the best word Expander you can find--recommend either ShortHand or InstantText, both avery well thought of by their users--and start with an initial goal of doubling that speed to 140, then improving from there.

An MT is paid by the line produced, and imagine how many more lines you will be able to churn out when you can type "hyd25mpb" and have "hydrochlorothiazide 25 mg p.o. b.i.d." type out for you. Plan on starting with abbreviations not for medical words, though, but for the common nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs used thousands of times a day in every document. Like "t" for "the" and "v" for "that," and so on. If an extremely common word's more than 1 letter long, consider if you shouldn't be shortening it. I shorten "he". Seriously--it's a tap of the D on my keyboard.

Strongly recommend a book like Saving Keystrokes by Diana Rolland and the website productivitytalk.com. Best wishes.
On job board. Some goof posted 11:50 hour for 2 years experience

Yes at PHNS-- this was a few years ago....was paid initially on how many lines you averaged an hour
the highest you could get was .085 which is what I averaged, however they restructured and it plummetted to .07.....you could get .085 again but you had to really work your butt off (something like +1500 a day).  I was PT so I was only doing 500 lines or so a day, at most 1000, so it basically sucked after that.  Plus the company totally changed, they started to outsource to the Phillappines, work dried up big time and we fought over the lousy crumbs.  Many of us left and moved onto to better things though!
Good for her! In-house we used to get all the demographics--
Now I put in name, date dictated, time dictated, dictator ID#, billing #, copies (for which I- that is I, me, have to maintain the list and the #s), date transcribed, time transcribed, and work type and op or procedure date or service date (all three different fields--pick one depending on work type, which I have to maintain a list) -- God forbid they hire and pay a programmer, when the MT can do it as part of her duties and not get paid. We are being treated like dirt! I remember even 15 years ago, we would have had a cow if we had to imput this info ourselves! 15 YEARS AGO!!!!! My MTSO has PROMISED this for 2 years!! 2 YEARS! Keeps saying "if the hospital would pay for it." There is plenty of stuff that could be programmed on his end. I cry when I see an ad about what technology can do--the word processor (us) is being left totally behind. I feel like I'm on a Selectric with one of the letters missing, this makes me so slow. MTSOs--help out the poor woman! Most of the time. We need programming, too.